BritishV8 Forum

Steve, et al:

It's an idea, and probably a good one.   I think we're just moving slow on the current "impasse"-- an out of place, inoperative car!    Please leave the option open?  :-)


I'll play Devil's Advocate on Rob's charity idea-- okay, so we sell the car.   Jim is right that we couldn't repeat the car for anything close to what we'd auction the car for (Seriously, even WITH a big hoopla-- $30k?)  

And then-- we have to look ourselves in the mirror and figure this problem out AGAIN-- only this time wiser, but also (admittedly) with likely less enthusiasm!  

(We certainly can't sucker... er... "persuade"... JIm into leading the next one!   He's just NOT that dumb!   :-)   )

I think the problem exists, whatever, whichever, and whereever we have this "group" car.    This one is actually "done"...

As the Devils Advocate, I always fall back on... BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.    :-)  

Let's figure this one out.   This is first major setback (sort of..).  Likely won't be last.   This group has FAR too many resources of knowledge and savvy to be stuck on a simple problem of insolvency...  

Cheers all,

M

So guys, the Road Master has hit a few bumps in the road. So what?  I for one don't think that it's time to abandon ship.
Some creativity is required. The pay for use idea is plausible. Who gets to drive something like that for free?
The story of the car needs to be written and advertised. Perhaps some one will twig on the idea of something being built cross continent and become interested in the whole saga?
 Is there something outside of our automotive focus that is feasible?
The car is viewed as an asset, which it is. But I think it's value in a monetary vein pales in comparison to it's value as a sign post of cooperation and mutual respect.
Once sold it's gone and the story ends.
 A group of people who will likely never meet one another in person, constructed a vehicle over the internet!
 How cool is that?
But how many people outside of BV8 know what went on?
The Road Master needs to be a solid reliable vehicle in order to continue. In that regard I would be happy to take over the reins and complete the vision. I have dry heated storage for the winter and the resources to deliver a finished product.The only hitch is that I'm on the west coast of Canada. Can anyone get the car here? If even that is the wish of the group.
As last note, to the people who actually, physically had anything to do with the car.
My complete admiration and respect.
Cheers
Fred

While we are kicking around ideas....

The car is pretty much finished, it's just broken and needs fixed.  Finishing the car was the initial mission of the organization, so now the mission needs to be redefined, in keeping with the BADASS, LLC mission, promoting the sport, educating the public, etc.  From here on out, what is the mission?  

The car could be used to "drive away cancer" like Grace, or some other worthy mission that would take it around the country.  My opinion is that something like that would be much better than just pay for use, but it would also be dependent on donations.
 
This car is an enigma.  It is not a traditional hot rod because it uses a sports car and not Chevy or Ford.  It is not a traditional sports car because it is spurious.  Quite a good representation of this group! Not mainstream by any stretch.

People outside of this group will not be inclined to provide support to this car as it stands.  If we decided to use it for a mission, such as Grace was, people would donate to the cause. The car does attract attention.  When I had it at the WV International Auto Show, we had pretty good crowd around it most of the time.   If it had a pink ribbon on it or a red cross or whatever, we probably could generate some income.  Operational expenses could be taken from the donations with the rest going on to that charity.  We could use a slogan like "they said we couldn't build it, but we did, now they say we can't beat cancer..."

It seems I've been misunderstood by at least a few people.  Let me clarify a couple of points:

1.  I never suggested that the current difficulty is too big for us or that we should abandon the car.  In fact when I said "Consider something like setting a timeline" I was thinking in terms of about 3yrs.  I believe it will take us that long to accomplish several things but most importantly sorting it out & then gaining the public visibility that was always a core objective in addition to ensuring those that contributed to it get a chance to enjoy it.  

2.  The suggestion of planning to auction the car at some defined point wasn't the only option, just one I thought was a good one & I'm trying to get concrete ideas that we can ultimately agree on & then act on.  The main idea behind it was that tying it to some form of charity is, IMO, the best option we have for securing reasonable & recurring funding as well as mass media visibility to the cool thing the group did.  Dan's suggestion could also be made to work.  To make it work I think it would require some form of monitary support to whatever the chosen cause is.  But, bottom line is if you don't like that idea, propose your own tangible idea along with suggesting how it could be implemented.  Remember "Vision without Execution is Hallucination."

Getting the car to Fred sounds like it could help on multiple fronts - one could be expediting getting getting it sorted & the 2nd would be getting it closer to some of the left coast folks who made significant donations.

There seems to be a new development in the works. Steve D suggested that the car should be in the southern states during the winter which makes sense as that will keep it in circulation and allow more testing and shakedown. Bill seems agreeable to the idea so if it is OK with Rick and Pete, Steve and Tom Caine have volunteered to run up to Sydney, get the car driveable and head back with it. They plan to stop by here on the way and we will see if we can equip it with the 3" diameter air bags and see how that works out since I have a set here. We can also look at the crankcase breather to see if we can't equip it with an oil separator of some sort.

Now this could potentially delay getting the car out west a bit, and I think there is much merit in taking Fred up on his offer to sort the car out as well. So I suspect the question should be, do we have a viable means of getting the car to Fred? And even if we do wouldn't it make sense to put that off until the great white north thaws out a bit?

What do you guys think? Good idea? Anyone else want to step up to campaign the car about the south over the winter?

Jim

FYI....Tom Caine and Steve deGroat are planning on picking up the Roadmaster November 15/16.

Thanks to Steve we're moving ahead with the repairs on the car and he will see that it gets some attention at some shows etc over the winter months. We need to  start looking ahead to next spring and getting a schedule together for the car, still plenty of folks who donated to the project that haven't had a turn with it.
The bank account is basically empty, not enough left to offset the monthly checking fee, but I am going to donate another hundred bucks to keep us afloat for a while. We need some donations for future expenses like the next tag fees etc. I know that it's a bad time of year to ask for donations with the holidays comming up, but even a few bucks will help if everyone can chip in.

Tom and Steve should be here in Illinois late this afternoon (11/15).

Hope Tom and Steve don't cause you as much grief as my near arrival a few months ago:
1)  panic phone calls and emails and text messages
2)  rent a trailer
3)  get a speeding ticket
4)  spend most of a day rescuing Roadmaster and jockey
5)  trip to Hooters just to use wifi
6)  next early am take PJ to airport
 Seriously, hope all goes well with the suspension and ignition.

Steve and Tom got here about 2pm CST.

Roadmaster has been diagnosed and repairs made to electrical system.

Coil was bad.....replaced with spare coil I had here in the barn...car now runs. I gave them a spare coil as well.

MSD and spark advance have been reconnected and work fine.

Air suspension obviously still has faults....the crew is looking at replacing the current bags with smaller bags when they get to Jim's tomorrow.

We'll take the car out tomorrow morning for a fuel run and shakedown run...then the boys will be Cincinatti (OK...Kentucky) bound (timing their departure to miss any Indy rush-hour traffic).

All is well....fingers crossed.

Where are the pictures?

Didn't take any pics (sorry).

The Roadmaster should now be in Indy on its way to Kentucky for an overnight at Jim's shoppe before continuing east.

They were going to replace the air bags currently installed with smaller diameter bags to see if this will cure the failure rate experienced. If not, GT coil springs will be re-installed.

The barn seems a little empty without the Roadmaster in one of the bays....

Steve can give more details later, but we punted on the airbags and installed a set of performance springs (.550" wire, and shorter springs) along with 1" spring spacers. The ride height is just about right we think. It will not ride as nice but no worries. Test drive in the morning.

Steve has been experimenting with the pcv and it looks like progress in an inverted sideways sort of way. By painting the underside with oil we have determined that oil has indeed been getting sucked down the carb and it is fixable. By the time they get home results will be in.

Other than that it seems to be business as usual, half the gages are working right and the gas mileage is pretty decent plus the general public loves it. So all in all not bad. I told Steve he is not leaving tomorrow before I get to drive the car.

Jim

I believe I found the barrel to the driver's door lock in the driveway of the house.

Please check.

Good news.  And who needs gauges anyway.  Just stop every 90 minutes and add two qts oil and 8-10 gals of gas and you are on your way again. I pushed it to two hours once driving at 70+ mph and ran out of gas.   I'm sure I'm the only  one here who has ever done that foolish thing.  
  Looks like you've got great weather for driving today.  Best wishes for a safe and pleasant ride to SC.  Maybe I can come down to help with something this winter.

Yep, the lock is missing. Can you send it to Steve please?
Hopefully the oil consumption will be down to more normal levels.
For the trip here the boys yanked out the pcv valve and let it lay on the intake and plugged a new one in the hole to plug it. Oil usage was down but instead of burning it through the carb they washed the bottom of the car with it where it came out the new pcv valve and ran down the back of the engine. Not hard to imagine what manifold vacuum was doing to that system. We plugged a breather in the pcv grommet in the manifold and routed the pcv valve to the breather on the valve cover. As you will recall, it had a hose nipple already. If that doesn't stop it I suppose we can run a hose from the manifold to the air cleaner or plug it and use a breather in place of the oil filler on the other valve cover, or even hose that to the air cleaner. Whatever we end up with, this one should be fixed. Steve will let us know.

We took a drive down Hathaway Rd. and it looks like the new springs are going to do just fine. Ride height is just right as far as we could tell and the spring rate seemed good too. Good ride for touring, at some point someone may want to put slightly heavier oil in the shocks but I only felt it hit the bump stops once on the test run so in normal driving it will be fine.

The coil problem was from vibration. A hole was worn in the bottom corner of the can, it could have happened to any coil. Just too bad it had to fail just when and where it did.

The guys are headed for the barn. They left around ten and should have no issues on the way.

Now what we do have as potential future items needing our attention:

The tranny(T-5) does not like to downshift into 3rd. It will if you properly double clutch. You T-5 guys need to noodle on that some.
The axle is a little noisy. Someone needs to find us a good Jag IRS center housing. Not real picky about the ratio.
The gages need upgraded. I don't think any one of us would have fought this problem for so long on our own car.
Gas spills out in the twisties. That nice fancy gas cap just doesn't seem to seal very well. Plus it is very hard to open and close.

That's about it for now I think. It really is a very nice car and I am glad it is headed to where it can be driven and shown off during the winter. I really sort of wish I had been able to go get it myself.

Jim

Tom and I got home about 5:30.
No problems and burned NO oil.
We got about 16 to 17 mpg and ran between 70 and 80 most of the time.  Our average speed on the last tank was 74.5 mph.
Steering shakes above 70 but settles down some at 84.
I will try to adjust headlight as they are very low.
A relay has hung up (?) and the cooling fan stays on.
It was great seeing Rick and Jean and they do a wonderful job of hosting.
Good to see Jim, Edith and Mathew and the hospitality there was out standing also.
The springs work fine and I think it has flattened out the cornering some.
Tom followed me through the gorge and said it doesn't lean very mush.
I will be taking it to cruise in in the area and trying to fix some problems.
Gas stops can take a while as people really like the car.

Steve

Sounds like good progress.  The fan was not sticking on when I had it so that is new.  Not sure how the adjustible thermostat works, maybe check to see if the shut off temp got bumped up maybe.

Mike and I had that relay problem on the power tour. I think we put in a new relay. They may make one with a higher amperage.

That is really GREAT news about the oil consumption! Who would have thought after all this time and trouble it would be that simple to fix? A big thank-you from all of us to everyone who helped sort that particularly troubling problem out!

Jim

Steve,
I am Glad you made it home safe   early and b   efore it got too dark.  I think more than 2nd gear would over run the headlights.  Do let me know if you want some help with Roadmaster.  I'm not too far away in Winston-Salem and I could take it to Max if he wanted to show it off.  There are several groups near us here that might like to see the car:  NASCAR shops, Forsyth Community College , 6 or 7 British Clubs will meet once a month. in NC over the winter. I'd be glad to drive down your way to help

PJ Lenihan
pjlenihan@me.com
mobile  336.462.1147

BTW...I donated two coils...the replacement coil and a spare coil to keep in the boot. Hopefully, we will never need the spare again.

Such good news, thanks guys for all your help. That includes Rick for storing the car and rescuing PJ this summer and Jim for the use of his shop as well. It's always been a team effort and still is. PJ stepped up with a nice donation to the treasury so along with mine we aren't broke, but still could always use some money in reserve for licensing etc.

The cooling fan is supposed to run after the engine is shut off if the temperature is high. Try disconnecting the black/green wire at the temperature switch and see if that doesn't shut the fan off. Then touch the B/G wire to ground and the fans should come on; remove it and they should go back off. If so, the relays are good.

More on the coil.
I t appears to be rubbing on the engine mount.  I will move it up slighlty.
If you turn the ign switch to the run position without starting the car there is no 12 volts at the pos coil.( PJ didn't stand a chance of fixing it)
The pos appears when you crank the engine.  I guess on the the MSD boxes is doing that.
I will try to adjust the headlights  and move the coil a little tomorrow.

Steve

"(PJ didn't stand a chance of fixing it)"

   You are absolutely right!!  At least I had enough sense to call Max when I was stumped.  Then Rick came to the rescue  What a guy.

BTW the fuel pump wiring needs attention, it is a side of the road quick fix using crimp on connections.

How much oil did you add?  I added 5 or six quarts in a little over 900 miles back in Aug.